all over now, is why in Trump's case, NARA knew the documents were taken and were so eager to get them back.

Possible reasons I can think of:

1) Trump very blatantly took hundreds of documents in large batches, they weren't intermingled with mostly other private papers.

2) the documents Trump took were very top secret highly classified, the most precious secrets, that NARA kept close track of where they went.

3) NARA was just being particularly mean to Trump because they didn't like him.

4) the Biden administration specifically sent NARA after Trump

5) some combination of the above


My guess has always been 1 and 2.

3 and 4 are silly IMO.

Perspective by Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is professor of history at New York University and author of "Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present."
October 26, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

What is driving democratic decline in America? Disinformation, election subversion, Donald Trump’s authoritarian leader cult and institutionalized racism leap out at you. But there’s another factor that is all the more dangerous because it’s part of our everyday reality: civilian access to lethal weapons, and the mass death that enables.

The scale and scope of gun violence in America doesn’t just desensitize us to violence. It also cheapens the value of life. It fosters political, social and psychological conditions that are propitious for autocracy. The omission of gun law reform from discussions of democracy protection is symptomatic of our normalization of this tragic situation. The Jan. 6 insurrection shows us how dangerous that blind spot has become.

For decades we have shot each other, with Americans causing fellow Americans more harm than any foreign enemy. More than 1.5 million died of gunshots in the past 50 years vs. 1.2 million in all the wars in the country’s history. This year alone, mass shootings have killed or injured more than 1,800.

Yet no amount of loss seems enough to deter the supporters of a brutal gun rights culture that factors in harm to some so that the freedoms and privilege of others can continue, and accepts mass death and trauma in the name of “liberty.” Add in an uptick of activity by extremists that preach violence and extralegal action as a way of changing history, and you have a high potential for political destabilization. Guns were prominent at the storming of the Michigan Capitol in May 2020 by militia members. They also featured at the Jan. 6 insurrection, which brought many strains of armed political extremism together: militia members, retired and active-duty law enforcement and military and radicalized civilians.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/26/gun-violence-authoritarianism-normalization/

WTF! Why is he doing this??? What am I missing here?

Progressives charge that Hector D. LaSalle is too conservative, anti-abortion, anti-labor and anti-due process and his appointment would tilt New York’s top court further to the right.
Common Dreams Staff
Jan 16, 2023

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries joined New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other state Democrats at a Bronx rally Saturday, just days ahead of what is sure to be a contentious confirmation hearing in which progressive lawmakers opposed to LaSalle’s appointment to lead the state Court of Appeals could be decided.

Progressives charge that Hector D. LaSalle is too conservative, anti-abortion, anti-labor and anti-due process and his appointment would push one of New York's highest courts even further to the right.

Jeffries, however, voiced his support for the judge, saying LaSalle is “highly qualified to serve as the chief judge.”

https://www.commondreams.org/jeffries-lasalle

Source: CNN

All votes in at 11pm Jan 6th 2022
McCarthy 216
Jeffries 212
Other 4
Present 2

McCarthy needed 217 votes to win or at least 3 voting present

Same hold-outs against McCarthy, Gaetz and Boebert vote present

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/house-speaker-leadership-vote-01-06-23/index.html

1) Why don't these Repubs try to vote in Trump as Speaker, since they love him so much and so many have already floated this idea?

2) what are the odds of a Dem becoming speaker?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-taxes-are-the-best-case-yet-for-putting-him-in-prison
This Friday news dump is a huge deal, and should be the final nail in his coffin.
David Cay Johnston

Don’t let the cynics who know little about our tax system trick you into thinking there was nothing all that new or important in the six years of Donald Trump’s taxes released Friday by the House Ways and Means Committee. In fact, even if some of it was previously teased by the committee, the dump includes a cornucopia of information that affects your wallet—including powerful evidence of criminal tax evasion.

Among other things, Trump’s tax returns make a strong case for restoring the law that until 1924 made all income tax returns public. Newspapers back then ran long lists showing the income of and taxes paid by the wealthiest Americans. Knowing that your income, deductions, and tax paid will be publicly available can do far more to encourage honest tax-paying than audits, which are increasingly rare and increasingly superficial.

Not even 500 of the nearly 25,000 households reporting incomes of $10 million or more in 2019 were audited. That’s 2 percent—just 1 in 50. Only 66 audits were completed. People like Trump who earn money from legal sources can cheat like crazy on their tax returns with almost nothing to fear. That’s because fewer than 600 people at all income levels are convicted of tax fraud in a typical year.

A few key excerpts
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1600502436174729229

....

https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1600540631470047233

....


https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1600550856407105537

imagine if president obama had dinner with a dangerous black activist who said "kill all the white people" and you'll see how the press is severely underplaying trump's dinner w nick fuentes and what that means about the modern gop.

https://twitter.com/owillis/status/1596192628206436354?s=20&t=kyUnStCsPtwOZL1JWVa-qw

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/amidst-the-corruption

The most notable thing is that for ever dollar I give literally one cent goes to Herschel Walker’s campaign. 98 cents goes to the NRSC. This is fairly shocking in itself. But at the moment the NRSC’s main task is getting Walker elected. That’s the only outstanding Senate race. So maybe you can argue that NRSC money is mostly going to support Walker. Maybe.

But the thing that really jumped out to me is that the NRSC gets 98 cents, Herschel Walker gets one cent and “Team Rick Scott” also gets one cent. Rick Scott ran the NRSC for this cycle, a fairly disastrous run. This cycle continues with the runoff. But what’s Team Rick Scott? That’s Scott’s own personal campaign committee. And what’s the point exactly? After all it’s just one cent. If he’s going to put his hand in the till why not take more? The Times‘ Shane Goldmacher I think has this right. It’s not the money so much as the data. Scott only has a one cent toehold but he gets the donor data on every dollar these NRSC fundraising pitches bring in. It’s just astonishingly brazen.

https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/columnists/james-briggs/2022/11/20/destiny-wells-diego-morales-indiana-secretary-of-state-election-results/69661647007/

Piece discusses electoral prospects of Dems in Indiana

Morales was a terrible candidate-- an Trump election denier with a criminal past-- and Wells was a great candidate. Really sad state of affairs here.

"Indiana’s Republican lean is a constant variable in Indiana. Beyond that, though, Democrats see three trends specific to this year that wiped out any chance of Wells winning: low voter turnout in Democratic-leaning Marion County, straight-ticket voting (in favor of Republicans) in rural counties and an unusually competitive congressional election in the 1st District that cut off a Democratic stronghold in Northwest Indiana.

Republican Jennifer-Ruth Green’s strong performance against U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan hurt Wells in Lake, Porter and La Porte counties. Even though Mrvan pulled off re-election to a second term, that’s an area where Democrats historically have run up the score. Wells lost to Morales in Porter and La Porte counties while winning by 9 points in Lake County. The tight race brought an influx of outside ad spending that turned out votes for Republicans, including Morales.

“In rural townships that (used to) run reliably Democratic, they’re now casting straight-ticket Republican votes at a pace of 2-to-1,” Shaw Friedman, a LaPorte attorney who is a DNC member representing northern Indiana, told me. “It became acute in 2020 and even more so this year. If you look across Northwest Indiana, there’s just a swath cut among folks who used to be our bread and butter.”

Outside of Marion County, Democrats aren’t gaining ground anywhere at a fast enough rate to overcome their losses in Northwest Indiana and other parts of the state. Carmel continues to be a rare (though unreliable) bright spot for Democrats. Wells beat Morales by 6 points in Carmel even as she lost Hamilton County by 4 points."


This piece here also discusses the sad state of affairs of Indiana politics--


https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2022/11/18/choices-made-on-election-day-could-mean-hoosiers-pay-big-price-later/69655293007/

On Tuesday night, I sat with my friends in my county's Democrat headquarters and watched as the election results came in. I watched as one by one, most of these highly qualified individuals — many of whom I've gotten to know quite well and call friends — were passed over in favor of their opponent.

This is despite the fact that they went out every day to speak with voters, showed up to town halls and debates, and completed online surveys and questionnaires so voters could better understand their positions, while the vast majority of Republicans — at the express instruction of their party chairs — no-showed these public forums and failed to answer online surveys or interview requests. And all because they simply didn't have the "right" letter by their name.

So, Destiny Wells, accomplished attorney and longtime Army reservist, lost to an election denier who not only illegally voted himself in 2018, but was also twice fired from the Secretary of State's office that he will now run.
Democratic Secretary of State candidate Destiny Wells speaks with local constituents Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022, at Sugar Creek Winery in Carmel. She hopes to beat embattled Republican candidate Diego Morales.


In Zionsville, biotech and pharmaceutical researcher Jen Bass-Patino lost to an evangelical, anti-choice, anti-science anti-vaxxer. Youth chaplain and community volunteer Zach Heimach lost to a transphobic, extremist doctor who is accused of causing the death of a patient due to negligence in northeast Indiana. ... A school board in Hamilton County — ranked among the healthiest, wealthiest, most educated places in the country — was just overrun by anti-public school conspiracy theorists who accuse teachers of handing out porn to students and allowing them to defecate in litter boxes."